The Insiders

you have to die?

Eve thought about Mark deliberately now, about her first meeting with him. It was one way to keep David out of her mind, wasn't it? Dear, helpful Peter and his helpful tips. Self-analysis for the masses. Do-it-yourself head-shrinking. Stop it, Eve! It's Saturday, and you have nothing to do until four-thirty Monday morning when the clock goes off again. Remember Mark. He, at least, was kind.

She always noticed men who were taller than she was. And she had known he was someone important from the way everyone seemed to fawn over him the minute he walked in. Mark had presence; he was the kind of man one couldn't help noticing.

Eve had been modeling gowns at a charity ball, given just two weeks before the San Francisco Opera season opened. She had been feeling desperate that evening because she knew she had to get a job—a real job. She'd switched over from Berkeley to San Francisco State University, but the question remained. Scholarship or not, she had to have a part-time job so she could send money home and still have enough to live on.

"Mart, I've got to find something! Mr. Higgins gave me this really great letter recommending me to the editor of the Record, but it's been two weeks and I haven't heard—"

"Well, you will. And wipe that sick look off your face, for Christ's sake. You're not playing Violetta, remember, just modeling the gown Beverly Sills is going to wear. Go on out there, baby. You're on."

The gown, really a costume, was gorgeous. Yards and yards of skirt and a tightly fitting bodice that exposed her arms and quite a bit of cleavage. Eve walked out to the lilting waltz theme from La Traviata, and the first person she noticed was Mark.

Tall, with silver-gray hair. Piercing blue eyes in a tanned, ruggedly handsome face. His gray suit almost matched the hair. And she knew, without having to look after that first glance, that he was watching her.

She hadn't known until later that he had arranged to sit next to her at dinner. Or that he had been the reason the five models had been asked to stay on for dinner. Another of the things she was to learn later was that Mark Blair always got what he wanted. He wanted Eve, and she didn't even realize who Mark Blair was and what he represented until Marti clued her in, much later on that evening, when Eve had floated back to the apartment on a champagne cloud.

"Darlin' child, your future is assured. Mark Blair! The elusive, aloof Mr. Blair, who just happens to own— almost everything around here! Do you feel like Cinderella?" Marti was half-drunk herself, but honestly happy for Eve, who hadn't really recognized her luck yet.

Eve wasn't thinking "luck"—she'd never met anyone like Mark Blair before, and she'd been more impressed by the man himself than the aura of power that clung to him. He hadn't been distant with her, and he was both a fascinating companion and a tender and undemanding lover.

It was not until afterward that Eve realized just how much Mark had done for her. He'd taken over. She'd got the job working as a feature writer for the Record, one of the newspapers Mark owned, and had finished college. And it had been Mark who'd found her the job at KNXT, insisted she must take it. It was almost as if he had been preparing her for what would happen—for learning to live without him. All she had left of the two years with Mark was memories. Sudden, surprise "vacations" all over the world, an education she could never have had in college. A closet full of expensive clothes and a few pieces of expensive jewelry.

All that was left of Mark Blair was cremated one incongruously sunny morning. Eve hadn't gone to the funeral, which was attended by his grown-up children. His bedridden wife, who had been "dying" for the past ten years of some mysterious illness, hadn't attended, either. Mark had died of a heart attack, playing tennis.

Two years. Eve hadn't cried over Mark since he'd died, but now the tears came slipping far too easily down her face. Was she crying for Mark and the love and safety and security he'd given her, or for David? Or were they tears of self-pity, for Eve Mason who was young and beautiful and bright, and had everything— and nothing?

CHAPTER THREE

"PETER PET, I tried everything—Yoga, stream of consciousness, reminiscing over past mistakes—I can t exorcise him."

Why, Eve wondered, did she tend to talk like Peter whenever she was with him?

She looked at him expectantly. Waiting for the rabbit to be pulled out of the hat; waiting for him to snap his fingers and tell her it was okay to wake up now—the breakup with David had been nothing but a nightmare.

They lingered over Saturday night dinner at Peter's favorite restaurant, one of those "in" places where everything was lousy but the food.

Peter sighed theatrically, shaking his head at her, but underneath the table Eve could feel his hand searching for her knee, moving upward to rest on her thigh. Peter liked touching, especially in public—and most of the time she let him because it gave her a strange, exciting feeling.

"I told you, Eve darling—I charge for analyzing you, but I screw you for free. Now, which is it going to be?"

"Stop giving me ideas, Peter—maybe I should start charging you. Wouldn't you like to use me as a case history? I'll talk into your little tape recorder in my best little-girl voice and use all the dirtiest words I know— it should make a best-seller."

He leaned over the table, pretending to look into her eyes, but she had felt his hand tighten on her thigh, and now his fingers probed delicately, carefully, until she rewarded his persistence with a tiny sigh—a relaxing of her muscles.

"Clever Eve. You always say exactly the right thing, don't you? Let's skip the cafe royale and go to my place so we can fuck."

"Mm-hmm. And I get to talk afterward?"

"Fuck first, darling. Talk later."

That night, Eve made the first of what she was to call the "Peter Tapes." She rationalized that she was doing it for herself because she needed help and Peter was a psychiatrist—normally she would never have been able to afford Peter. Whatever her subconscious reasons were, she had to admit to herself that having their lovemaking taped gave her the same sexy-dirty feeling that Peter's hands groping up her skirts under restaurant tables did.

Peter didn't like her to call it screwing.

"Screw is such a mechanical word, my sweet. You're not a machine; I'm not a machine. Fucking is so much more human, more personal, don't you think?"

Peter was good in bed, very efficient, even considerate —making sure she got hers. But he wanted her to talk dirty. All the other times she had refused, why should she put herself, her voice, her moans on one of his tapes?